Voltaire – The Pull Of The Land

About 15 years ago, I jotted the points below from a lecture or from a book but neglected to write the source. If a reader knows the source, I would very much appreciate hearing from him or her so that I might give due credit.

The author or lecturer demonstrated that all great peoples or nations usually run a familiar course, which roughly followed the experience of the ancient Jewish people:

God rescues a people from slavery giving them faith
Faith gives great courage to a people
From great courage, the people obtain great liberties
From great liberties the people obtain great abundance
From great abundance the people become selfish
From selfishness the people fall into complacency
From complacency the people fall into apathy
From apathy the people fall into moral decay
From moral decay the people fall into dependence
From dependence the people fall into slavery

What we see around us is nothing new. Every great nation or empire or people has seen the same regression — including ancient Israel, as even a cursory reading of the Bible will attest: a time of great faith and great courage; a time of great liberties and prosperity; and then a time of complacency, degeneracy, dependence, and slavery: immorality and pleasure-seeking never produce growth or wealth — quite the opposite.

In the case of America, we have something additional that, although not unique, is nevertheless noteworthy: we have been busy indoctrinating several generations to hate themselves and their native or adopted land. This too has historical precedence, as, for example, the Romans refused to defend themselves from the hordes of invaders. In our case, we have been trained to hate our history and fathers. But that doesn’t mean we end up loving nothing. As someone somewhere has put it, “history abhors a vacuum”.

We now love “the other”: that which a mere generation ago was thought immoral, indecent, degenerate, tyrannical, and worse, is now what our upcoming generations are taught to “love”. We hate ourselves, but we love something completely opposite to our history and heritage. It follows that we will not defend, let alone fight for, something we hate.

And “the other” doesn’t just sit there basking in our “love” for it. No, it becomes the viper we have nursed to our bosom; it becomes our master. And nothing good can come of that.

The recent congressional brouhaha over the discovery that Communist China has been influencing the curricula in American elementary schools was much ado about nothing because we knowingly have been teaching the very same atheistic claptrap for generations, without China’s help. Her involvement now ought not to be occasion to clutch our pearls.

So, what is to be done?

There is an example in history of not too long ago which ought to give us hope.

Eighteenth Century England was a moral disaster. There are journals of proper Englishmen registering their having gone to church and successfully “feeling up” a lady or two. Drawings exist of pubs with “clean hay” or simply “hay” to sleep off drunken stupors. The “clean hay” meant that it had no vomit, as opposed to the other, which did, but was cheaper and many resorted thereto. The dog returning to his vomit proverb was very real to 17th Century England. Pornography was rampant.

The North American colonies were well aware of England’s degeneracy: the third bill of right reads:

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

During the War for Independence, British soldiers and foreign mercenaries took over private homes, in many cases assaulting or otherwise ravishing the wives and daughters. Drunken rampages were not uncommon, even among ranking officers.

England was the place where apostates like Voltaire caught the atheistic urge to spew hatred towards Christianity and took that pornographic bacteria back to France where it produced oceans of blood and violence.

Why did England not go the way of France in the 18th Century?

Well, in her fields and street corners, men such as John and Charles Wesley were preaching the Gospel and thousands were convicted and their hearts opened. George Whitefield preached in both England and also the colonies, although he died before the fruits of his ministries became visible in England.

The Lord used the preaching and teaching of His Word and Law to turn England around. A turnaround the likes of which are rarely seen — Ninevah after Jonah’s preaching comes to mind. And in the following century, she led the greatest evangelical missionary outreach in history, other than the Apostolic age. King George lost his colonies, but gained the world.

From debauchery to world conquest in one century.

Of course, this is not something wrought by human ingenuity or power. It is the work of God. But we know that many mothers and fathers in England were praying for their sons and daughters, that they would return to the old paths.

And that is the course we must ask God to help us take if we hope to see a return to the old paths here in our country, a country whose history irrefutably was founded upon eternal spiritual values which in turn made us a great nation.

John Adams said, “Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.” However, he overlooked Nineveh … and also England.

Let us listen to Jeremiah as he rebuked Judah:

“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD. Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.”

May we say, “We shall walk therein.”

All the while, knowing that without the intervention of God, nations will decline and cease to be.

John Wesley, left (1703-1791) and Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

George Whitefield (1714-1770)

Voltaire (1694-1778)

The Barbarian invasions and sackings took place in the face of little to no opposition.

Cumaná, Venezuela, is a beautifully placed city founded in the early 16th century (1515). It is the oldest continuously inhabited city established by Europeans in South America. Refer to the post, Playa Hicacos, 1966, for descriptions and photos of the beaches and mountains in the area, the northeastern coast of Venezuela.

This was the city where the great explorer and naturalist, Alexander Von Humboldt, alighted in the late 18th century.

He arrived just days before a spectacular solar eclipse, which he recorded in precise detail in his 23-volume record of his “equinoctial” journey, a great part of which was through large swathes of Venezuela. This journey consumed about 5 years, the end of which he travelled to the United States before returning to Europe. In the USA, he met several times with Thomas Jefferson and they became warm friends with a good deal of correspondence over the succeeding years. They shared mutual interests, including natural history, geography, and a passion for exploring the Americas. The Lewis and Clark expedition commenced in 1804, just as Humboldt’s Equinoctial journey was ending.

Like Francisco de Miranda (see post, Simón Bolivar III — Influences), Humboldt not only knew Jefferson, but he also met and, for better or for worse, influenced a young Simón Bolivar, who was in Europe when Humboldt returned.

Following other, shorter trips, he set about to record and request scientific challenges to his multifarious observations and conclusions, many of which, including complicated laws governing atmospheric disturbances at higher altitudes, as well as the regularity of ocean currents, stand to this day.

The renowned, 5-year South American expedition laid the foundation for the disciplines of physical geography and meteorology; his effort of recording and documenting, which he believed would take him 2 or 3 years, actually consumed twenty-one years of his life, and remained incomplete at his death in 1859. But the 23-volume record of observations in the Americas was completed.

Humboldt recorded a great solar eclipse which occured on October 28, 1799, just days after his arrival. But, even more momentous than the eclipse, was the “atmospheric phenomena”, as he put it in his journals, that took place before and after. He wrote, “…from the 10th of October to the 3rd of November, at nightfall, a reddish vapor arose in the horizon, and covered, in a few minutes, with a veil more or less thick, the azure vault of the sky…clouds of brilliant whiteness collected at the zenith, and extended towards the horizon…clouds so transparent that they did not hide the stars…I could distinguish so perfectly the spots of the moon….”

But that was not all. These extraordinary phenomena were eventually surpassed by a remarkable meteoric shower he observed and recorded on November 11-12, 1799. This observation became the starting point of modern scientific knowledge about the regularity of this meteoric shower that we now know as the Leonids. Thanks, at least in part, to Humboldt in Cumaná, Venezuela, we now know these showers occur approximately every 33 years, when thousands can be seen per hour.

But Cumaná was not done showing off to Humboldt, she presented him with a terrible earthquake. However, he learned that, as bad as this earthquake was, it was only a shadow of the one that devastated the city thirty-two years before his arrival. Humboldt transcribed the records of the city describing that earthquake of October 21,1766.

“The city of Cumaná was entirely destroyed, the houses were overturned in the space of a few minutes, and the shocks were hourly repeated during fourteen months. In several parts of the province the earth opened, and threw out sulphuric waters. These irruptions were very frequent in a plain extending towards Casanay two leagues east of the town of Cariaco, and known by the name of the hollow ground, (tierra hueca), because it appears entirely undermined by thermal springs. While the ground was in a state of continual oscillation, the atmosphere seemed to dissolve itself into water.”

He went on to write that the period prior to the earthquake and the months of after-shocks was accompanied “by varied phenomena such as flames and vapors mixed with sulphureous acid shooting from arid sands; geysers of water mixed with petroleum; hot, muddy masses issuing from huge crevices which would close and grow into elevated hills. These phenomena were accompanied by loud, monster-like noises: subterranean, rolling thunder; continuous, thud-like sounds, as of large quantities of sand mixed with water, thrown against a giant wall; extremely loud hissing, as if the earth had become a mighty, pressurized kettle which had finally been compelled to allow accumulated steam to violently escape…. The people of Cumaná, upon sensing what was afoot, ran into the streets, many crying, ‘Misericordia! Misericordia!’ (Mercy! Mercy!). Sometimes the sounds came after or during the earthquake. At other times they preceded the earthquake, thereby alerting the people to run into the streets seeking to avoid entombment in their houses or places of business.”

There is a great paradox to the 1766 earthquake: reports describe the complete destruction of the city; however, there is no mention of deaths. A possible explanation: the earthquake hit at 4:45 AM. Almost all the people of Cumaná were in the habit of leaving their homes at 4 AM to attend the first morning mass. This hypothesis, if true, would mean that the church structures withstood the initial waves, allowing people to run out in safety. But this is conjecture.

Residents encamped in the streets and, when the after-tremors decreased to about once per month, began to rebuild and recover surviving livestock, much of which had managed to escape southwards, away from the ocean.

There is evidence that the 1766 earthquake was felt as far as Quito in northwestern South America. Hard to believe, but evidently true. One result of the terrible earthquake was that none of the 16th century architecture survived. Over thirty years later, when Humboldt visited, the people of Cumaná and as far away as Caracas commemorated the day annually with a solemn procession on its anniversary.

As for Mr. Humboldt, I knew, or thought I knew, much about him as I was growing up. My father had some of his writings and drawings, particularly as they related to Venezuela. The almost-to-be magnificent Humboldt Hotel atop Mt. Ávila was built during my childhood, I learned about the Humboldt Current, and heard of the Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt in Cuba, and the Humboldt Redwoods State Park in California. His name was ubiquitous. Few know about him today.

As for the earthquake, it took place eleven years after the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, which some call “The First Modern Disaster.” Why call it that? It seems it was the first disaster where man sought to explain an event by divorcing it from the hand of God. Hence, this earthquake had a significant impact on the development of philosophy and theology in succeeding generations. The earth began to be seen not as a “house with an owner”, but rather as one ruled by chaos.

One final tidbit: there was a Jesuit priest in Lisbon who was alarmed by the godlessness of the reasoning being used to “explain” the earthquake. He was not against science; he was against atheism. He was burned at the stake by the Inquisition under the direction of the powerful first minister, known to history as the Marquês de Pombal, who then ordered all Jesuits expelled from Portugal and its empire, including Brazil.

The irony is that Voltaire, who utterly despised Christianity, mocked the burning at the stake as yet another instance of religious superstition provoked by the Lisbon Earthquake. As a thoroughly modern man, he neatly inverted the truth: the priest was cruelly executed, not in the Name of the Triune God, but in the name of reason. In other words, the Inquisition was an instrument of the State which insisted on its own definition of the truth and denial of faith. Dissension to political correctness carried the priest to the auto da fé. Best to consider anything Voltaire (or his ilk) says with a couple boulders of salt.

We’ll have more to say about Cumaná, Mr. Humboldt, and The Great Lisbon Earthquake in future posts.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0011 Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813